admin
Pathisa Nyathi
Perceptions do, without doubt, influence cultural behaviour. Perceptions are a community’s worldview which inspires and informs behaviour. So it was with twins (amawele or amaphahla) among the Ndebele. Here the important consideration is that in normal circumstances a woman gives birth to a single child. Twins are therefore an abnormality, a phenomenon that is out of the ordinary or extra-ordinary, unique and strange.
The story of perceptions does not end here. What is perceived as extra-ordinary is thought to possess power that is more than that of the ordinary and the usual. These perceptions result in a wide range of cultural practices and attitudes some of which border on the spiritual. Here lies the explanation and interpretation for the treatment of albinos in countries such as Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania. Where power is seen to reside, it is harnessed and that, in practical terms, translates to ritual murder or hunting down and killing the habitat.
It is the same thinking that lies behind attitudes towards disabled persons. Their uniqueness is regarded, in African terms, as translating to concentrated power. The perception is that the extra-ordinary, the different and the unique are associated with power and, as a result, sometimes sacredness and divinity are invested in such objects, persons and physical aspects of a landscape.
Such an understanding does help to interpret cultural phenomena such as rainmaking rituals that are associated with extra-ordinary aspects of physical landscapes. Traditional Africa perceived the earth as being female and therefore associated with fertility, which translates to or is associated with rainmaking and rain.
The natural environment, both flora and fauna, is sustained through rain. A mother, more than a father, plays a critical role in the natural process of child bearing-read fertility and continuity. Landscape is by and large consistent or uniform in terms of altitude, vegetation and physical features. A unique physical landscape such as the Matobo Hills is perceived as unique, extra-ordinary and unusual.
Mountains are perceived as indicators of a woman’s pregnancy, with caves that have spring water being taken for a womb with amniotic fluid. At the Njelele rain shrine the unique cave comprising stone/rock, mountain, cave, water and trees becomes a very extra-ordinary physical feature which represents a combination of perceptions that led to the investment of sacredness to the hill, thus culminating in the hill being a site or locale for Mwali, the God of rain, fertility and peace.
What all these African perception translate to be some association between abnormality and power, power that may induce the environment to, for example, yield rain that is needed for the fertility or continuity of man, nature (environment) and Mwali. This is what we have always been laying a lot of emphasis on-the link between cosmological underpinnings and the resulting cultural practices.
To understand the African is to understand his ideas, cosmology, perceptions, philosophy and beliefs. Fundamentally therefore, the complex sets of hills that constitute the Matobo Physical Landscape are perceived as a disabled part of Mother Earth.
Back to the twins who are perceived as extra-ordinary and a natural disability. Twins are associated with power. Rulers immensely enjoy concentrating power in themselves. Inevitably they felt threatened by people who are liberally endowed and imbued with unique and immense power. Where twins were born, their birth was concealed as far as possible. Where the secrecy could not be sustained one of the twins was killed.
There are several instances within Nguni societies where one of the twins was done away with. We should appreciate this kind of cultural behaviour if we get into the mind of the African. It should be seen as a social measure taken to normalise an abnormal situation. It was disempowerment of the potentially powerful so as not to pose a threat to the king’s eternal rule.
Let us now hazard an interpretation of the practice where the twin who emerged first out of the womb was disqualified from succession. The twin that emerges first is one that is responsible for the abnormality. It is the one therefore that is associated with unique power. It is the one that is eliminated. If not physically eliminated, it is not allowed to succeed. Normalisation is about getting rid of this person, either physically or disqualifying him from succeeding.
Eliminating the first twin immediately normalises the situation. The remaining twin has been normalised or defused and can succeed his father without posing a threat to the socio-political order.
Let us end the story of twins and its cultural significance by making reference to the eMagogweni chieftainship under the leadership of Maqekeni Sithole. In this chieftainship there were twins. Oral traditions trace the Sithole genealogy to one Mgabhi the father of Sogaza whose son was Njokane. Njokane’s son Dlomo had five sons and one of them was Nqameni who lived during the time of Mfecane in the south eastern seaboard.
That was the time when activities of slavers and traders in the east coast led to cataclysmic upheavals that led to the depopulation of the area as various groups migrated north in order to seek refuge in settled areas. One man that left the area was Sotshangane Nxumalo. Many people followed him.
One of these followers was Nqameni who became part of the Gaza State. The other son was Sithole who sired Khuhliwe. It was Khuhliwe who got involved with Matshobane Khumalo the father of King Mzilikazi Khumalo. This section of the Khumalos lived at Ngome near Isikhwebesi River.
Khuhliwe went on to marry Magceke the daughter of Mpindo Thebe. Khuhliwe sired twin boys, Maqekeni and Ngqephu. As we do know, it was Maqekeni who was appointed chief of Igabha section of Ndebele State at the time when the Ndebele were domiciled at Marico. The king lived at eGabheni from about 1832 to 1837 when his people were attacked and defeated by the Afrikaners under the leadership of Piet Uys and Andries Hendriek Potgieter (uNdaleka).
What we can surmise from the appointment of Maqekeni Sithole is that he emerged out of the womb after Ngqephu, thus possessing less innate power in comparison to Ngqephu. It was iGabha village/regiment that absorbed many people that the Ndebele conquered both in the Transvaal (Limpopo Province of South Africa) and in Zimbabwe. A vast swathe land and its peoples fell under iGabha likaMaqekeni or iGabha laMasandle.
The chieftainship is still in existence and straggles both Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South. Once iGabha had absorbed several people particularly the Bakalanga in the Gwayi River area, aMagogo became the nuclear village or headquarters for Chief Maqekeni Sithole’s successor, Chief Gampu I.
Bongani Ndlovu